Hockey’s place in Canadian culture is closer to religion than a simple sporting pastime, a unifying force in a country of 33 million people that is often split by politics and language.

The sport is part of the national identity, a rite of passage between fathers and sons and more recently mothers and daughters as the game has evolved beyond its traditional gender boundaries.

Generations of Canadians grew up listening to Hockey Night In Canada on the radio and decades later the Saturday night tradition continues intact on high-definition television.

Canada hopes to win its first gold medal at a home Olympics this time, after failing at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games and the Calgary Winter Games in 1988. To hockey fans, the only really important thing is the men’s gold which will be decided on the final day, February 28.

Steve Yzerman and Mario Lemieux shared a room on the eve of one of the most important games in Canadian hockey history.

There was no five-star resort for Team Canada at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City and there won’t be at the Vancouver Games either.

Instead, the millionaire hockey players will be staying in the Olympic village alongside speedskaters, snowboarders and other athletes competing in Vancouver. The accommodations aren’t exactly spartan but they’re not quite as fancy as the places NHL teams typically call home on the road.

The Clear Lake Jets have withdrawn from the provincial senior A hockey playdowns due to a lack of players, but its manager/coach/promoter isn’t going down without a fight.

Merv Bodnarchuk has asked the RCMP to investigate two hits in Clear Lake’s game against the Grandview Comets on Jan. 17. The Mounties in Grandview say they will look into the matter, but they aren’t sure how far they will go considering it happened on the ice.

“It’s in the hands of the law now,” Bodnarchuk said on Tuesday from his home in Onanole. “If the law of the land falls on to the law of the ice, we’re suggesting that a charge be filed.”

The Jets, featuring former NHL stars like Dale Hawerchuk, Claude Lemieux and Cliff Ronning, weren’t expecting a hard-hitting contest against Grandview in the opener of their two-game, total-goal series.

The Comets won the contest 8-6, but Hawerchuk, Lemieux and Ronning told Bodnarchuk they didn’t want to continue in the series because it was too physical.

The 2010 Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit might not have the sports cachet or instant name recognition of a Super Bowl or basketball Final Four, but it’s got some very cool stuff going for it:

• A couple of high-profile cochairs who can actually lace up their skates and handle a stick—Bill Ford Jr. and Christopher Ilitch….

“It’s going to be an electric atmosphere in downtown Detroit,” Ilitch said Monday of the Frozen Four week.

On April 7, the Red Wings are to host the Columbus Blue Jackets in a game with possible NHL playoff implications. On April 8, the Frozen Four NCAA semifinals are to be played at Ford Field. Next door on April 9 the Tigers’ baseball home opener is scheduled. And on the 10th is to be the Frozen Four Championship game.

Ex-NHL star Sergey Zubov was outraged by the coaches’ decision to choose him as a substitute player for Russia’s Olympic hockey team, calling the move “a spit in the face”.

“The administrator of the national team has just called me and said that I am included in the list of substitutions for the Olympics. I actually did not know what to say. The situation surprised me a lot,” the 39-year-old told Sport-Express newspaper.

Zubov currently plays for SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL, being the top-scoring defender in the regular championship.

“And earlier I was amazed and even offended by the words of the president of the Russian Hockey Federation, Vladislav Tretyak, and head coach of the national team Vyacheslav Bykov, who uttered in an interview: that in order to get to the national squad one must gnaw the ice, and that they would not take you for your previous merits,” the veteran stressed.

“All these statements have extremely disappointed me. This is humiliation of me as a personality and a sportsman. I do not owe anything to anyone and I have honestly earned my name in ice hockey. I am not 25 years old and have proved my high level with seventeen seasons in NHL. I am not going to prove anything anymore,” he added.

Mike Komisarek’s availability for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics might be in jeopardy.

The 27-year-old defenseman is still sidelined from a mysterious upper-body injury (suspected shoulder) and while he might be ready to return on Saturday, his status for the United States Olympic team in Vancouver isn’t quite clear.

“[Tuesday] is three weeks to our first game,” Ron Wilson said of the American team. “If you take the one week away, he has I’d say a week to feel comfortable. If he’s not we’d have to make other plans for the Olympics.”

“I’m not going to put his career at risk. And we’re not going to risk his future with the Leafs for a two-week Olympic thing either.”

Rouyn-Noranda Huskies forward Patrice Cormier was suspended for the balance of the season and the playoffs by the QMJHL on Monday.

Cormier, 19, created a firestorm of media attention last week when he elbowed Mikael Tam of the Quebec Remparts in the head, sending Tam into convulsions on the ice and causing him to be taken to hospital with brain trauma and broken teeth.